Category Archives: Beeman

Sepia Saturday 464. Seventh in a series on the early life of my paternal great-great grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Blakeslee) Bull, a Union Civil War widow.

Around 1854 my great-great grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Blakeslee) Bull, 16, said goodbye to her school chums and neighbors in Conklin Centre, N.Y., and moved six miles south with her parents to Brookdale, Penna.

Not a distant move by today’s standards — but it must have seemed a world away to a teenager in the 1850s.

Liberty Township in Susquehanna Co., Penna. (circa 1858). CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE. In the upper right is Brookdale P.O., where my Blakeslee ancestors moved circa 1854. Two appearances of the name Z. Blakeslee mark their home and my ggg grandfather Zebulon’s nearby store, which may also have served as the post office. Mary probably attended the school (noted as Schl.) down the block from their residence. Their former home in Concklin Centre, N.Y., is located just above the Pennsylvania border. Source: ancestortracks.com

Why her parents Zebulon and Hannah (Hance) Blakeslee chose to leave their Conklin farm is unclear. But move they did — because around 1854 Zebulon began to show up in records related to Brookdale, Penna.

A traveling postmaster

When the family relocated, Mary’s dad took at least one of his jobs with him — that of rural postmaster.

According to the U.S. Post Office Dept.’s Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-19711Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971. NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls. Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group Number 28. Washington, D.C.: National Archives. Ancestry.com accessed 31 Mar 2019. Zebulon Blakeslee was appointed postmaster of Brookdale, Susquehanna, Penna. on 16 July 1854 — and reappointed the following year.

That Zebulon would continue as a postmaster is not surprising, since he was previously postmaster of Conklin Centre N.Y. from 1851-53. And prior to that he was postmaster in neighboring Shawsville, N.Y. from 1846-49.2Mazza, Thomas C. Postmasters and Post Offices of New York State, Broome County, Nineteenth Century Post Offices, page 46 Shawsville, Empire State Postal History Society website, http://www.esphs.us/resources/post-offices-postmasters/ accessed 6 Mar 2019.

So this was a decade-long career for Zebulon — and all the better for Mary, since she could easily get stamps to correspond with her Conklin Centre friends and with her married older sister Rhoda Ann (Blakeslee) Whitney, who stayed behind.

This is consistent with a letter I received from a Susquehanna County Historical Society researcher confirming that she found Zebulon Blakeslee on the Liberty Township tax rolls in 1857 (merchant $25) and 1858 (merchant $25, real+acre $30).

I read the above passage with interest, because the name Anson A. Beeman rang a bell. A quick look at previous research confirmed that he was the husband of Rachel (Hance) Beeman — an older sister of Mary’s mother Hannah (Hance) Blakeslee.3Hance, Rev. William White, “John Hance and Some of His Descendants,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, April 1904, p. 130. www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org accessed 2 April 2019.

The map above also shows a property in the upper right marked “I. Hance” likely owned by another relative — Hannah’s older brother Issac.4Ibid.

So my teenage great-great grandmother Mary may have left her sister, friends, acquaintances and neighbors behind, but she was back with family in Brookdale — where she had a whole host of Hance-Beeman cousins, judging by the 1850 federal census returns for the nearby households of her uncles Anson A. Beeman,5FamilySearch requires free login to view records.an innkeeper, and Issac Hance,6FamilySearch requires free login to view records.a farmer.

And in Brookdale, before long, Mary would be starting a family of her own.